Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick.

Learn to think continentally.

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.

The major networks, the cable networks, they’re being prosecutors. They’re judges and jurors and executioners. Well, c’mon, that’s ridiculous. But they’re doing it.

At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

Language is the dress of thought.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

You might be the funniest guy in the world, but if you don’t have anything to talk about, people are eventually going to gravitate towards the guy that’s actually saying something.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

My wife doesn’t even want to spend 2 hours with me.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

I don’t think people are going to talk in the future. They’re going to communicate through eye contact, body language, emojis, signs.

I can resist everything except temptation.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

FaceTime helps me a lot. I feel like I’m at home even though I’m not.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things.

There’s plenty about God that I don’t understand and can’t explain. But I come back to my core belief that God is good, that He’s for us.

A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

I’m a problem-solver.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.

If your man is a sports enthusiast, you may have to resign yourself to his spouting off in a monotone on a prize fight, football game or pennant race.

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.